Can Neymar provide a financial return on PSG's investment?

The Brazilian forward’s five-year contact is reportedly worth approximately $45 million a year before tax, making him the highest-paid player in the history of his sport.

Combined with his record transfer fee, it would mean PSG’s total outlay, including wages and agent fees, is likely to exceed half a billion dollars over the five-year contract.

So how can the French club afford it and satisfy the UEFA’s mandatory Financial Fair Play regulations? And can Neymar provide a financial return on the club’s investment?

“When you consider Neymar as a brand, maybe it won’t seem so expensive. I’m sure we’ll make more money than we’ve paid,” Qatari billionaire Nasser Al-Khelaifi, PSG club president, said at the press conference Friday when Neymar was unveiled.

“Before Neymar signed the club was worth €1 billion ($1.17 billion). Now it is worth €1.5 billion ($1.76 billion). The best player in the world is here. With him our project will grow even stronger and the league will become more interesting to everyone.”

“Neymar is one of the best players in the world, commercially he is very strong and for sure PSG thought about it.”

Under the terms of Financial Fair Play, introduced by UEFA seven years ago to slow the game’s spending, players wages can’t constitute more than 70% of a club’s income and losses can’t exceed €30 million ($35 million) over a three-year period.

PSG brought in an estimated $618m in 2016/17 — of which over $350m was from commercial sources — according to KPMG’s Football Benchmark.

The Neymar fee alone comes to over 42% of the club’s entire income last season — leaving aside his wages of more than half-a-million dollars per week.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has criticized the deal, calling it “beyond calculation and beyond rationality” and telling reporters on Thursday that new ownership structures have “completely changed the whole landscape of football in the last 15 years.”

But Al-Khelaifi believes there will be “no problem” meeting UEFA’s regulations.